On the road, then off the road
Dec. 16th, 2009 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonWriting blocks, for me, can take a couple of different forms. Sometimes I become blocked for a week or two because my Muse is trying to tell me that I've taken a wrong turn somewhere with a current project. He's making me stop until I figure it out, back up, and get off the wrong path. Once I get clear on that, things generally start moving again.
Another kind of writing block is more insidious and harder to cure because it involves the recognition that I've taken a wrong turn inside myself. I stop writing when I get out of balance, but it's sometimes hard to realize that's happening. Fortunately, these reassessments of my life's path occur only every ten years or so, and the good news is that I've gotten much cannier about recognizing them. In my misspent youth, I'd sometimes spin my wheels for months, even years on one horrible occasion, mostly in a state of denial. Denial is the road to nowhere, pretty much.
So, how to fix myself rather than the project I am working on? Not always easy, but admitting there is a problem is a crucial step. Usually, in the midst of that whole reassessment thing, it's required to sit down somewhere quiet, to let the doubts and fears and questions and wants and hopes and aspirations and whatever crowd around. Once they do, it requires more quiet time to listen to their various complaints, let them sink down into the deep levels, and see which of them are valid and which of them are just more wheel spinning. It requires asking them, asking myself, what I really want. What's important to me, and not necessarily the great wide world.
This is not a society which values quiet time and passive receptivity. We are doers. We believe in going out and hunting down our solutions rather than letting them pad in on soft paws and lie beside us. We don't like mixing our metaphors, either. If we're on the damned road, we want to stay on the damned road. If we're out in a forest clearing sitting around with wild things—well, we don't want to do that. It's too passive. And, besides, wild things are scary. What if they attack us, try to eat us? What if we're like that guy who went into the wilds of Alaska and relied too much on books on nature craft rather than being taught true nature craft and wound up eating poison mushrooms and dying alone and in agony?
But sometimes that's exactly what you have to do. Well, not eating the poison mushrooms part, but the going into the wilds and sitting around the campfire.
This is not a time of year that lends itself to quiet time. It's become this mad, rushing thing; a crazed pursuit of some perverted perfection of consumerism, getting caught up in doing things a certain way and being the ultimate hostess. But it should not be. The Winter Solstice was always a time of sitting around the fire while the cold rages outside, of taking an accounting of the year and the harvest just past, of feasting and expiating the gods so that they will bring the spring once more. It's a time of waiting for the world to be reborn.
After weeks of wheel spinning, I've finally started to make myself sit down, be quiet, and listen to the wild things as they tentatively, shyly come padding in to lie near my fire. They are as scared of me as I of them, but they do not try to eat me. (Or feed me poison mushrooms.) They have already begun talking to me, going deeper. And I've finally started to listen.
Stay tuned.
Another kind of writing block is more insidious and harder to cure because it involves the recognition that I've taken a wrong turn inside myself. I stop writing when I get out of balance, but it's sometimes hard to realize that's happening. Fortunately, these reassessments of my life's path occur only every ten years or so, and the good news is that I've gotten much cannier about recognizing them. In my misspent youth, I'd sometimes spin my wheels for months, even years on one horrible occasion, mostly in a state of denial. Denial is the road to nowhere, pretty much.
So, how to fix myself rather than the project I am working on? Not always easy, but admitting there is a problem is a crucial step. Usually, in the midst of that whole reassessment thing, it's required to sit down somewhere quiet, to let the doubts and fears and questions and wants and hopes and aspirations and whatever crowd around. Once they do, it requires more quiet time to listen to their various complaints, let them sink down into the deep levels, and see which of them are valid and which of them are just more wheel spinning. It requires asking them, asking myself, what I really want. What's important to me, and not necessarily the great wide world.
This is not a society which values quiet time and passive receptivity. We are doers. We believe in going out and hunting down our solutions rather than letting them pad in on soft paws and lie beside us. We don't like mixing our metaphors, either. If we're on the damned road, we want to stay on the damned road. If we're out in a forest clearing sitting around with wild things—well, we don't want to do that. It's too passive. And, besides, wild things are scary. What if they attack us, try to eat us? What if we're like that guy who went into the wilds of Alaska and relied too much on books on nature craft rather than being taught true nature craft and wound up eating poison mushrooms and dying alone and in agony?
But sometimes that's exactly what you have to do. Well, not eating the poison mushrooms part, but the going into the wilds and sitting around the campfire.
This is not a time of year that lends itself to quiet time. It's become this mad, rushing thing; a crazed pursuit of some perverted perfection of consumerism, getting caught up in doing things a certain way and being the ultimate hostess. But it should not be. The Winter Solstice was always a time of sitting around the fire while the cold rages outside, of taking an accounting of the year and the harvest just past, of feasting and expiating the gods so that they will bring the spring once more. It's a time of waiting for the world to be reborn.
After weeks of wheel spinning, I've finally started to make myself sit down, be quiet, and listen to the wild things as they tentatively, shyly come padding in to lie near my fire. They are as scared of me as I of them, but they do not try to eat me. (Or feed me poison mushrooms.) They have already begun talking to me, going deeper. And I've finally started to listen.
Stay tuned.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 10:56 pm (UTC)I've only just started reading your journal, but I love it a lot. I like your introspection, your thoughts for the day, your poetry. I hope you do work through it.
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Date: 2009-12-16 10:59 pm (UTC)And yeah, weird about Into the Wild. That story has been an object lesson to me, of sorts, about relying too much on books about life rather than life itself. :-)
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Date: 2009-12-16 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 11:25 pm (UTC)*really, really, really, really, really, really.
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Date: 2009-12-16 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-17 01:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-17 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-17 02:09 am (UTC)(And have a lovely time with your wild things. :))
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Date: 2009-12-17 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-19 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-19 09:48 pm (UTC)